Residents face more garbage woes as carts buried by snow-clearing crews before pickup

The first major snowfall of 2012 created sizable garbage pickup problems in some areas of the city.

Residents in Southdale woke Tuesday morning to find garbage bins snowed in or knocked over by snow plows.

Garbage trucks still hadn’t arrived to collect the bins around 11 a.m. Tuesday, which had some residents concerned.

“If people know, they wouldn’t be putting their garbage out to be piled up,” said Southdale resident Don Saramaga. “Really, it’s just the lack of notification explaining what has to be done.”

The city said it did its best to schedule snow clearing and garbage pickup on opposite days, but in some areas it was not able to do so.

“The garbage pickup couldn’t proceed as quickly as it wanted to, so some of the pickup areas extended into some of our plow zones last night,” said Ken Boyd from the city’s public works department.

To avoid the conflicts between garbage collection and snow clearing, the city wants residents who have not had their streets cleared of snow to put the trash out at 7 a.m., or as close to 7 a.m. as possible on their pickup day.

The city said it will do its best to have crews pick up the trash, even if bins are snowed in, but the onus will be on homeowners to make sure their garbage is set out when the trucks arrive.

Winnipeggers who park on residential streets were also told to check their zones and move their vehicles when their area is slated to be cleared.

Vehicles in the way are being towed to other streets.

“We had approximately 45 tow vehicles out last night. They towed as many as they could during that timeframe,” said Ken Boyd.

In total, about 500 vehicles were towed, and nearly 3,000 warnings were handed out. The city said it won’t issue tickets during a grace period following the first big snowfall this past weekend. In the future, however, drivers will face a $150 fine along with the tow if they park on a street where snow clearing is happening.